time out with friends

it was the northern posse on cruise patrol this weekend.

a couple of friends toddled on down from the north, to visit me, the dog and the boat this weekend.
after insisting on me giving them a postcode of my location (on the river Lee, near cheshunt in herfordshire was apparently not good enough)
they found themselves 20 miles adrift somewhere inside the M25 near to the olympic development site. Twat-Nav is a splendid device, especially when you put the wrong postcode in. After a few minutes of me explaining that cheshunt really is OUTSIDE the M25, please believe me and look at a map, no not the twat-nav...
they arrived thankfully with sunshine and smiles.

a quick tour of the boat, yes mind your head, this is the kitchen, living room, you might want to shuffle sideways, this is the throne room and there is the bedroom. there ya go, that was quick.

we decided on a little cruise up the lee past Broxbourne, I've done it on my own last year but fuck me those lock gates are heavy buggers to move, I had cast that memory from my mind and filed it in the rose tinted section.

its amazing how two extra pairs of hands make locking a bloody doddle and a piece of piss. we arrived at a lovely spot over looking a sailing lake, very peaceful and it seemed far removed from the wailing non-stop sirens of london. It was simply blissful. I have now added it to my very small list of places I actually like.
I can honestly say it is perhaps one of the best weekends Ive had on this boat so far.

thankyou to my friends for taking time out to visit. it means a lot to me.

one comment sprang to mind, one friend asks, as a day boat goes past and the occupants keep looking at us all the way past and off into the distance, she said, "what are they looking at?", perhaps sounding a little threatened or indignant. I replied, "Oh people do that, it's normal, just wave back and smile". On a boat you are a tourist attraction and therefore fair game to stare at. I said "they probably would ask questions if only we would go slow enough..." questions such as: do you live on that: how much do they cost: where do you moor it: do you have to book in advance: can I come inside and have a look around: can I take my picture with your dog...
It had been a whole week since I was asked a stupid question or stared at, I was starting to become worried.

welcome to the zoo

I am fed up of being treated like a freak show, I think I shall put a message for all to read upon my roof ( apart from a for sale sign that is)


If you want to have your picture taken on someone's boat, first make friends with the owner.
Don't just climb on while Im having my breakfast and let you mate snap away from the towpath. Cheeky bastard.

If you want to have a look around my boat, my home, then get to know me first and wait to be invited.
Don't peer through the windows and stare intently at my homes interior and all its belongings. If you should see me looking back at you, at least have the decency to walk on and pretend you weren't looking.... Don't keep staring you nosey twat.

When you see a cute chihuahua in a lifejacket on the roof of my house, don't assume he likes having his picture taken (£1 per picture, strokes cost extra). When you ask if you can stroke him and I say he might bike, Don't act all fucking surprised when he tries to rip your nose off because you smell funny. He's just protecting his own furry ass and being small he's got a big attitude.

If you don't like the cut of my Jib, the strong language or short temper, then stop asking me stupid bloody questions all the time and give me some sodding privacy.

thank you and welcome to the stinking canals, have a nice day.

feel the pressure

It's quite a simple, logical water system on Honey Ryder, but logic evaded my helpful, well meaning little hobbit friend as he tried to do a job we have performed several times together like clockwork, but, alas, working alone he forgot when to do what and why and it all went a bit tits-up.

what happens every four months or so is that our accumulator needs a bit of air adding to it to keep the water pump churning away at a nice leisurely Brrrrrrrrrr Brrrrrrrrrrrr, rather than a staccato sounding Brr Brr Brr Brr Brr
its an easy job; switch off the water; switch off the pump; find a bicycle pump; open a tap; attach the pump to the valve on the accumulator and pump two or three times to remove a little bit of water; switch off the tap; resume pumping with the bicycle pump until it goes firm. switch on the water, switch on the pump. Open a tap and see if you have the pressure right by listening to the pump, hopefully purring away like a happy cat.

It is best to avoid this sequence: switch off the water, go and open a tap, switch off the tap, go and switch off the pump, come back and open a tap, pump the accumulator continuously until you get confused why it wont go firm, go and close the tap, come back and resume pumping, get bored of that, switch the pump on, water on and then panic and switch it all off again when the pump makes a very bad B B B B B B B B B B noise. try pumping the accumulator some more, try as many different combinations of the above possible. give up and go out for a meal with partner, look sheepish on arrival home and then wait until midnight just before going to bed to spring the good news to the unsuspecting.

after a few choice cross words, I knelt on my knees with my head pointing into the water pump hole, praying to the boat-maintenance-god that we hadn't actually permanently fucked anything and hoping that my weekend wouldn't be spent visiting chandleries for replacement parts. several minutes more of sitting on the bed looking at the stricken pump, accumulator and dismantled panels with head to one side like a dog that just heard a funny sound, I resolved to go to bed and have a little think about it.

32 hours later the answer came to me, let the bloody air out of the accumulator. Eureka.

Entry one moment in time

as a photographer currently without a decent camera, I do see some picture opportunities simply pass me by without a chance to capture the moment.
its frustrating.

so I keep my trusty compact with me and occasionally I see a subject not too challenging for its meagre pixels.

sometimes if you squint enough, even the shit holes of london can look quite nice.

could be worse...

just when I think I'm having a miserable time on the canals, I am always reminded that in fact some people have it far worse.



still doesn't stop the really funny young people who knocked on my boat at 6.50am this morning, just because they thought it would be funny to wake us up. The man was just ready to leave for work so they got a suprise when he popped his head out of the doorway asking if he could help them. Stuck for anything interesting to say, they wished him happy new year.

They were lucky, if they had called by just 10 minutes later they would have had me waving kitchen knives at them and swearing like a steelworker as I was doing the pots and I'm very easily angrified in the mornings.

where's the punchline?

Living aboard a narrowboat on London canals just gets more an more exciting, the adventures never end.

Constantly cruising and trying to adhere to the rules as much as possible means we move. We move frequently. While the rest of the world (it seems) hides inside in a warm cosy place and rides out the winter only emerging in Spring, we continue the battle of finding somewhere new to moor each week or two.
Knowing we have to move means a few days before casting off I mentally prepare to move home again, mentally prepare my new route to work and mentally prepare for the boring journey ahead up a grim and grizzly london canal.

the travel power pulley has been replaced and a new belt applied. However when running up the engine the belt failed within 5 minutes, so there is still a problem somewhere with the belt fitment. Still no travel-power. still no automated home laundry. that's shit. I hate washing in a bucket.

However, onwards and upwards, since the engine is still capable of propulsion we are heading up towards the River Lea again for a final Assault on the River Stort. I want to see Sawbridgeworth and surrounding areas so that's where we are headed.

From Limehouse, the next stop is Springfield, just one lock and a couple of hours cruising.

Just one lock, Old Ford Bridge, lock 19, yes that's all there is, what could be more simple, it's electric so what can go wrong?

For a start, the lock could be jammed full of more shite than I ever thought possible. A couple of trees, a gate, a couple of doors, some planks of wood, a shopping bag on wheels, massive sheets of plastic, several different balls, 100 or more bottles, uncountable plastic bags, natural plant debris and a delightful swathe of diesel oil over the top of the lot giving off a lovely smell.
You can imagine this might challenge the lock operation a bit. It did. No sooner had I opened the bottom paddles than we had a red malfunction light flashing in the lock-keepers office.
I called BW (0800 4799947) to report the problem and the chap there advised me to "put the kettle on and have a cup of tea" not to be confused with "put your knickers on and make me a cup of tea" To BW's credit they came out quite fast for a cold, wet and windy sunday afternoon.

I sat by the fire warming my arse and clutching a beer* (Hobgoblin) ((*equally not to be confused with clutching my arse and warming a beer)), occasionally glancing out the window to see if anyone was on the lock. In-between glances. somehow the BW key-holding magician slipped under the radar, fixed the lock and buggered off. Maybe he buggered off because I wasn't standing there waiting with a cup of tea?

The lock doors opened and slowly emptied of shite, which was circulating in a cross current just outside. It was a delightful picture of unwanted household items swirling around in the green and brown sludgy paradise of the canal.
Getting in the lock was a case of, give the engine full welly, get some inertia up to tackle the howling side-wind and then knock it out of gear to glide over the swirling mass of rubbish, enter the lock a bit fast, chuck the centre-line and bow line round a bollard and hope Honey Ryder stopped before giving the bow a cill-shaped face lift.

Job done, we went through the lock in minutes.
Brilliant, isn't this canal boating fun?

Excitement over, yes really we do love electric automated locks where you can't control the paddles rate of opening...
Shortly after leaving the lock we realised the adventure wasn't over as we dipped our hands into the lucky dip barrel of fun. First pulling out a piece of wood that was blocking the upper lock doors to find a dead rat under it, then pulling round a corner into a fast flow on the river Lea with a strong head wind, we made progress at a rate of knot...

It's almost painful to watch the scenery go by in slow motion, watching a moorhen paddle past us was a bit like being on the motorway and being overtaken by a caravan... but in this case the caravan was being overtaken by a small bird with dubious fashion sense. ( a bit like me cycling through london in fact)

I can't believe how much fun it was, I could barely contain my joy at spending a whole day of my weekend moving a stupidly designed brick on water just a few miles in driving wind and rain, avoiding plastic bags and other products of human excess. There was nothing I could think of that would bring more joy to my life than doing that.

Oh wait a minute, yes I can.

the magic sponge

As with most modifications, they come about because of an urgent necessity through breakage.

Our travel power has been out of action for just over a week now, ok, it's 2 weeks but I was trying to think positive.

The first symptoms of something wrong happened, er, last year on our maiden voyage away from our marina at Easter. squeaking ( read squealing) bearings in a jockey pulley that stops the large travel power belt from flapping about.

We changed the travel power belt because it was looking a bit worn on the back and WD-40'd the bearings. Yes I know it's not a real fix but it does make the bearings go quiet for a little while. repeated WD-40 application was all it needed... yes, honestly it's got magical properties has WD-40... a bit like the magic sponge at football matches.

fast forward to christmas time 2007, having replaced the travel power belt again, it promptly failed after just 7 days of being fitted. we put it down to a faulty belt.

having adjusted the current belt several times and hummed a little tune while the jockey wheeled screeched away until it heated up we thought , perhaps one day we should replace the bearings.

SO, what happens when the WD-40's magic sponge effect wears off?
When bearings over-heat and explode, your jockey wheel seizes solid, bits fly off and embed themselves wherever it's soft enough, your belt gets fused to an almost red hot jockey wheel and you spend the next day on the phone ordering new parts.
Two new belts, at £14 each and a new "upgraded" jockey wheel that looks like the barrel from a gun, £74.

The new 12-shooter ( for that is how many holes it has bored through it to apparently keep the jockey wheel cool) is due to be fitted soon and normal 240v service should hopefully be resumed.